5.2.2.1 Warm up
If I had to name the part of a training session that people consistently get wrong, it would be the warm up. Lifters far too often rush into the gym and tear into their sessions without sufficient preparation. You may get away with it at the beginning of your weightlifting career; but as you get better, and you lift heavier weights, not warming up will begin to catch up with you. So get into good habits early on.
An effective warm up needs to achieve a few things – It needs to get you into a state where you are ready to train. This is important with regards to mobility, state of mind, range and muscle potentiation.
Mobility
Your warm up should have you enabled to hit all the extreme positions required in Olympic Lifting. This includes being able to sit into a comfortable bottom snatch position ensuring you have the appropriate mobility through the right articulations; Sufficient shoulder range, sufficient hip range etc.
State of Mind
If you have had a stressful day at work, or a frustrating drive to the gym, you are not immediately going to be in the right frame of mind to have a good training session. Your warm up can function as a chill-out period in which you calm down and get yourself into the appropriate mental state for an effective training session. The reverse is also true, if you are tired and fatigued, the warm up is a time where you can listen to music and get yourself more motivated for your training session, with the same goal in mind of getting yourself into the appropriate mental state for an effective training session.
Muscle Potentiation
This is the phenomenon by which muscular performance is enhanced as a result of previous contractions. To get your muscles ready for training you need to have done at least 3-5 warm up sets before your working weights. The intensities of these sets will be ascending as you progress through them. This is in order for your muscles to be ready to lift the load effectively.
If you want to know a lot more about this phenomenon have a read about post-activation potentiation.
Recommendations for an Effective Warm Up
Too often I have seen people rush into a training session before they are ready.
Do you feel as though it takes a good 3 or 4 sets at working weight for your lifts to feel good?
If so you probably could do with a more effective warm up.
Limber 11 is a warm up and potentiation program invented by Joe Defranco. This program works and hits all the main movers the you need in your lower body for Olympic lifting.
I have attached a PDF of Limber 11 and it is downloadable --->
I like to use a modified Limber 11 to warm up.
I also add in some myofascial release for my calves and pec minors, as well as stretches for my calves and some “skinning the cat” for shoulder mobility.
More information on mobility including the Weightlifting-PB Warm up routine will be included in the Mobility Section coming soon.
